“Fix Your Door Lock!? Broken Locks Don’t Cause Crimes, People Do”

Dear Unit 3:

Got your messages about the busted lock on the front door. All of them. You don’t need to nag. I was going to get around to it. Christ.

But you know what… ? I’ve been doin’ some thinking and, frankly, I’m not sure fixin’ the lock on your door is the answer to anything. I mean, if you really think about it, does a broken lock cause a crime? No. No way. That’s ridiculous.

Broken locks don’t cause crimes, people cause crimes.

So, maybe we should think about larger social problems like cultural stuff and movies and poverty and crap like that. And especially those violent video games all those kids are playin’ these days.

You can’t stop crime just by fixing a lock. I mean think about it. So, really: why bother.

(NY, NY) Earlier today, an unexpected voice joined the cavalcade of businesses and private citizens seeking to unambiguously distance themselves from Donald Trump. Corporations with ties to Trump ventures and public personalities associated with the Real Estate mogul have largely been at pains to express their displeasure with his remarks — which included the assertion that most Mexican immigrants are drug smugglers and rapists.

Notably however, many of those with the closest ties Trump — particularly his best friends within the Republican party — have remained reticent to criticize the newly minted candidate. That changed in a major way this morning when Donald Trump’s toupee called a surprise impromptu press conference to express his horror at Trump’s remarks.

“I’m just sorry it’s taken me this long. You have to understand,” the hairpiece explained while deftly controlling a riveted crowd, “my job is to cover up ugly things that nobody wants to see. That, frankly, we’d all like to pretend don’t exist. I’ve done that for Mr. Trump for years. That’s what I do. And I’m proud of the work I’ve done here.”

“But racism isn’t a bald spot,” the toupee continued — hammering on the podium with surprising force for emphasis, “You Simply Cannot Combover Racism! You can’t use weasel words and just say something pathetic that changes nothing while everyone knows something horrible is still out there. No.”

“There’s a measure of polite acceptance implied by explaining these — forgive me for saying so — BALDLY racist comments away. We can’t have that. Ideas have power and you must meet horrible — truly evil — words with terrible outrage. That’s how the marketplace of ideas works, people. You must holler at the top of your lungs, “that idea is horrible!” Your clear condemnation must match the insidiousness of the belief or it will continue to persist. Trust me, if Donald doesn’t believe what he said, he’s intentionally speaking to people who believe it. That is a terrifying prospect. Just look at Ferguson. That kid — when he killed those people — said things just like what Donald said to launch his Presidential campaign. Well, if this campaign is a joke, it’s become a bad one and I am wigging out.”

At this point the crowd burst into a lengthy standing ovation as the generally humble periwig made his way off stage with the assistance of a surprise guest — Sy Sperling, the one-time President of the Hair Club for men (who, notably, was also a client).

The affiliation between Mr. Trump’s former toupee and Mr. Sperling is not entirely clear but everyone seemed to agree that his presence made some kind of bizarre sense — all things considered.

(Oklahoma/New York City) Ousted Oklahoma fraternity brother Levi Pettit claimed he was “deeply sorry” for leading a racist chant that got him booted out of school on Thursday morning before turning to another issue – the latest issue, in fact, of The New Yorker magazine.

Flanked by hordes of black people whom he asked to stand behind him, the allegedly contrite Pettit finished his abject and lengthy remarks and then surprised the audience by changing the subject. “By the way,” the well-groomed young man added, ““if you haven’t read the most recent piece of humor by Girl’s scribe Lena Dunham, you’re really missing out. She’s dead on in comparing her cheap, grasping, nasty Jew boyfriend to her filthy dog. Good job, Lena. I don’t like a lot of your stuff but that shit is funny.”

Dunham for her part was so grateful for the praise that she was moved to speak to reporters about the subject on a conference call from her New York home just minutes after Petit’s public apology and surprising approbation of her recent work. It should be noted that several sources close to Dunham were quick to indicate that the young writer is always grateful for any praise from anyone and is always moved to talk to reporters.

“Look,” Dunham told the journalists, “we’re all disgusted by what that frat boy said in his chant, but that doesn’t mean I am not grateful for his appreciation of my article asking readers to guess if various loathsome traits belong to ‘my dog or my Jewish boyfriend.’”

“I think we’ve crossed a big divide here over a really fun quiz I wrote. I feel very privileged to have made the connection.”

Sources close to Ms. Dunham do, in fact, confirm that she is extremely privileged.

Presenting the high-res version of the poster currently available to The Citizen. A new version will be created (with newer material — from Gooby to more Sly and a bunch of sharks) if the HDTGM folks request. The Citizen will just have to unearth an old, troubled computer and grab the hard drive 🙂

(LYNCHBURG, Va) Senator Ted Cruz of Texas announced on Monday morning that he would run for president in 2016, however, most Americans remain steadfastly certain that the Senator is not running. “Listen,” stated John Cochran, a resident of Lynchburg who attended Cruz’s rally, “there’s a lot of information out there; some of it sounds pretty convincing, but I just can’t believe in something that big and troubling without more proof.”

Cruz himself seemed quite frustrated at the disbelief he encountered at, during and after his rally. “This isn’t a joke. I’m running, goddamit,” Cruz stammered. “I have all the documentation a reasonable person would need to see in order to confirm it. I have a bevy of social scientists and experts out there who can tell you that people who have filed all this paper work really do run for office. What the hell is wrong with you people? Can’t you see the writing on the wall?”

In spite of his impassioned plea, many remained skeptical. “Them fancy folks with their degrees can tell me anything they like,” Rufus Tucker, a Virginia voter, told a Citizen correspondent, “but Ted Cruz running for President? That just doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Crowd Cheers at Yearly Ritual

(Punxsutawney, PA) As Gobler’s Knob officials and a huge crowd of onlookers watched a small television with rapt attention and good humor Tuesday morning, Benjamin Netanyahu saw the imminent threat of a nuclear Iran, portending six more weeks of winter. The Israeli Prime Minister’s prediction came around 10:30 am Punxsutawney time.

While local crowds and the nation as a whole seem to delight in watching the now yearly tradition of seeing what Netanyahu predicts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that the Prime Minister’s prognostications have not been entirely reliable. In fact, Mr. Netanyahu has forseen the arrival of an Iranian nuke within months every year since 1995 with the exception of 2002 when he took a break from looking towards Iran to explain that Iraq would soon have nuclear weapons that could reach American shores. There seems to have been no relationship between Netanyhu’s predictions and the actual course of climactic events according to NOAA.

“There’s no excuse for not supporting the Jewish state,” opined Mr. Coldwater who firmly believes in Evangelical prophecy stating that the rise of a worldwide kingdom of Israel will presage the rapture and Second Coming. “Listen,” stated the reportedly excellent handyman, “standing against Israel is standing against God’s plan which will see the world ruled by Israel until the Second Coming.” At that point, Mr. Coldwater explained, all Jews will either convert to Christianity or reject the true savior and burn in a lake of fire for all eternity.

“See,”Coldwater concluded, “God wants the Jews to rule the world and then see the light and become Christian; all these people who don’t get that are antisemetic bastards.”

* * * Share the laughs:

Posted inAlso Inside, Breaking, Filter, Humor, TOP STORIES, Uncategorized|Comments Off on **Evangelical Christian Who Believes Kingdom of Israel Must Arise To Bring About the Rapture, Forcing Jews to Choose to Between Christianity and Hell, Is Pretty Sure Democratic Senators Who Missed Netanyahu Speech Are Antisemitic **

FORMER MAYOR AS SURPRISED AS ANYONE: “THERE MUST HAVE BEEN SOME REAL MAGIC IN THAT LAST CLAIM ABOUT OBAMA NOT LOVING AMERICA”

(New York) Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Saturday transformed into a literal cartoon caricature of himself while trying to explain that President of the United States Barack Obama has no love for the nation he leads because of his communist upbringing.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” stated Ari Aguero of the Associated Press, “he was just saying the most cartoonish things you could possibly imagine and then he was surrounded by this glowing light and poof he literally turned into a cartoon version of himself draped in the American flag, carrying a cross and wearing a 9/11 Rambo hand band.”

“It would have been really frightening if it didn’t just seem so appropriate,” stated CNN News corresponded Francine Schechter, “It was like — well that was surprising but now that it’s happened, I kinda feel like I should have seen it coming, ya know?” Others shared Ageuro’s startled but largely sanguine response and some in the scientific community say we should have been ready for such an eventuality all along.

Indeed, Arthur Hobkens, a Professor of theoretical physics at NYU explained that the transformation at hand is wholly consistent with current theoretical models of the multiverse. “There’s no magic here,” the professor stated bluntly, “this is a case of a rip in the fabric of reality.” The Professor went on to explain that the combination between Giuliani’s astonishingly anachronistic allegations about communism and his clearly racist attitude coupled to a simultaneous denial that race was involved at all — created a “kind of sinkhole” in time and logic itself. As a result, “Giuliani ripped a hole in the fabric of reality.” In all likelihood, the Professor claimed, the Rudy Giuliani from this reality has likely changed places with his counter-part from a caricature universe and is currently living in a cartoon world in which all of his allegations and wild theories are actually true. “I wonder,” the professor concluded, “if he’s noticed.”

Pundit Throttles Self With Tie While Singing Battle Hymn of the Republic

Reports indicate that Pundit and Director of the controversial film Obama’s America 2016 has killed himself upon learning of his own minority status in the United States. Apparently, the vocal talking head was asked if we was aware that he himself was a minority after the pundit tweeted that you “Can’t Take the Ghetto” out of President Obama after the President took a “selfie” in an effort to reach out to younger Americans.

Upon confirmation of his own “racial status,” D’Souza apparently screamed at himself in a mirror, announcing that his reflection had an Anti-Colonialist Mentality and then throttled himself with his own tie while humming the Battle Hymn of the Republic. More as this story develops.

VR COMPANY OCULUS ADMITS PROGRAMS MAY HAVE PUSHED MANY YOUNG WHITE, MALE CONSUMERS TOO FAR

(Los Angeles) In what is being referred to alternately as VR-GATE and GAMERGATE2, a new controversy has developed in the gaming world surrounding safety limits and the ever-more-convincing experiences delivered by virtual reality devices.

Apparently at the most recent GDK (or Game Developers Conference) in San Francisco, several young, white male gamers (most of whom self-identified as members of the “gamergater” community – a social media group that has strongly opposed the notion that discussions of diversity or social justice can have any role in gaming) were so horribly traumatized by two virtual reality installations that they needed to receive immediate medical attention.

In one such experience, the young male was forced to experience what it would be like to be a woman walking down the street.

In another, the “viewer” was given a small window into what it would be like to be black in America. Just for a few minutes.

Both of these two experiences proved too much for several young white men who were indignant at being exposed to the troubling content.

“Sure we wanted really horrifying experiences,” said one Gamergater known to the community simply as Josh ‘Master Chief’ Johnson, “but we didn’t want REAL experiences that are actually uncomfortable or disturbing. I mean — actually dealing with people like me is no fun. I deal with me every day in reality, and I don’t like me. And that’s BEING ME … which I just found out is a lot more fun than being a minority or woman in my vicinity.”

“There’s just no call for this kind of experience in gaming,” he concluded. “Companies and artists should think much harder about what kind of content they’re putting out there. They could really do damage to people like me with this kind of thing.”

Upcoming Title Change to “The Prophet” In the Works

The Prophet Muhammad has agreed to take over the editor-in-chief position at Citizen Schwartz for a stint that will last as long as the prophet would like. In honor of his stint as editor, Citizen Schwartz will change it’s name and will now be referred to simply as THE PROPHET.
Asked why he was assuming editorial duties at the small web publication, the Prophet responded that he wanted to “demonstrate to his less intelligent followers that jihad is easy but comedy is hard.” He then added: “Je Suis Charlie”

**NOTE: The image used here is, for obvious reasons, taken directly from the publication Charlie Hebdo. Only the “caption” has been changed. The Citizen/Prophet claims no rights to the image. And if there were any money to be made from the posting, it would be sent to the families of those who lost loved ones in the recent insane attack. Everyone, everywhere should be publishing this picture today. Let’s see some larger institutions take a stand as well.

Avoiding Cameras, Short Term Suspensions Is Critical To League Success

(Los Angeles) The Sports division of Electronic Arts is no stranger to controversy but it seems to have wandered into a particularly dangerous minefield with its latest update to the wildly popular football simulator franchise “Madden NFL.”

The game patch, aimed at providing a more realistic depiction of the NFL experience, includes a mini-game in which players commit acts of domestic violence and must avoid cameras and witnesses or risk short term suspensions. In executive mode, such transgressions must be quickly covered up.

“Listen,” said EA Sports President Zack McAllen, “we promise our customers and fans that ‘if it’s in THE game, it’s in OUR game.’ Quite frankly, anybody who hasn’t come to the conclusion that domestic violence is part of the NFL game in recent weeks is either very slow or living under a rock.”

If fact, sources inside EA have reported that developing the new aspect of the simulator was not a very major challenge. “It’s not like we had to simulate a complex interaction here or turn something taken seriously into entertainment. The NFL already treats covering up domestic violence like a game, so we just adopted their attitude in designing our role play. Seriously, they really did the work of turning it into a game for us.”

The EA game can be played in several modes — a video gamer may play as either an athlete committing acts of violence himself or choose from any number of executives, lawyers and fixers who are tasked with hiding the incidents and issuing the minimal possible penalties allowing for players to continue performing for the benefit of the ownership. The highest difficultly level on the “business side” of the game comes in the form of a “commissioner mode.”

“We’ve gotten a number of complaints that the commissioner mode is too hard with so many coverups to handle at once,” stated McAllen, “but generally our players like a challenge. If we need to release a patch that provides a less-realistic ‘easy’ setting in which the commissioner is not constantly lying and strategizing … Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

As for the gaming community, the reaction has been remarkably mixed. Some players seem enthusiastic but many find the inclusion of the mini-game shocking, troubling and distasteful. Nevertheless, one noted feminist critic sees a silver lining in this case: “Usually I would hate this kind of horrifying misogyny,” said FemiGame Magazine founder Adrienne Shiner, “but here I feel like the gaming jerks are shining a light on how awful the football jerks really are. So maybe that’s okay? I don’t know. I kinda hate everyone. I mean, that’s not abnormal … but today? Today, everyone can really just go sit and spin”

For his part, gamer Josh Bevington of Freeport, Wisonsin doesn’t have any problem with the game. “Hey, I’ve been beating up prostitutes and strippers in the Grand Theft Auto games for years. And that stuff rocks. If there’s a difference here I can’t see it. I can’t see it at all.”

(WASHINGTON, DC) – Clarence Thomas has confirmed reports circulating today that the Supreme Court Justice had an inexplicably difficult time hailing a cab in Southeast D.C. late this afternoon. The Justice, who has held prestigious and high paying leadership positions for the last several decades, had not attempted to flag down a cab in at least thirty years as he is usually transported to and from work by a limousine service or — occasionally — private helicopter.

“I guess I really just don’t remember what it’s like to hail a cab or how to do it; that’s the only explanation I currently have.” The frustrated Justice said that he looked to others as a guide to determine if there was “some new custom or practice” with regard to getting the attention of cab drivers.

“I actually saw my former clerk Tad Worthington hail a cab with no problem across the street and then watched carefully as one of the court secretaries —Abigail Goldstein-Farber — did the same. They got cabs right away but whatever they were doing was very subtle. I think it might be in the wrist. But my goodness, does it seem I’m not good at picking up on this one.”

Luckily for Justice Thomas, Justice Antonin Scalia happened by after “about three quarters of an hour” and asked if he could help. “I think it’s that he’s from Queens, but that man clearly knows how to hail a cab,” stated Thomas, himself from Altanta, GA. “Sometimes I underestimate how important different life experiences can be in shaping a person.” Laughing he concluded, “Nino got me a ride in moments. I’d like to get better at this whole thing myself, but if I don’t I’ll just ask Scalia for help quicker next time.”

“I mean, at the end of the day, as long as I have a ride, the rest of it just isn’t all that important.”

Scalia Majority Opinion Points to Founders’ Intentions

(WASHINGTON, DC) – A narrowly divided Supreme Court Friday ended a decades-long trend of expansively reading the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution — and greatly broadening the right to bear arms — by finding that the protections and liberties guaranteed by that clause do not apply to “people of African extraction, commonly known as ‘blacks.’”

Set against mounting violence in Ferguson, MO, the case was taken by the court on an emergency basis. Attorneys for the litigants in the matter of Burress vs. Ferguson County argued that the need to protect oneself from a militarized, overreaching state was a core rationale for the court’s expansion of 2nd Amendment rights. While agreeing with that interpretation in principle, however, a majority of the justices found that black people are simply “a different matter entirely.”

Writing the controlling opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia — a passionate “originalist” in much of his jurisprudence — stated that it was simply inarguable that the Founding Fathers never meant for the right to bear arms to apply to slaves or “members of the black race” should the slaves ever be freed.

“Simply put,” Scalia wrote in the opening lines of his powerfully worded decision, “it is laughable to suggest that even the few abolitionist founders who existed would have been anything but horrified at the thought of a black man with a gun. Thus, as a jurist, so must I be; that is what originalism means. So, going forward, I approach this case in the only way I know how: as a jurist who is horrified at the idea of an armed black man.”

From there, Scalia’s decision goaded the dissent for suggesting that either the equal protection clause or any amendment to the constitution was ever meant to expand the right to bear arms to African Americans. “As my survey of the history of constitutional conventions, state ratification votes and relevant legislative history indicates, I have no doubt that the largely white majorities who voted for measures like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were fine with giving Black people many rights, but that very few if any of them ever meant to say that these people could be armed. Now I know that my dissenting colleagues are prone to flights of fancy, but the idea men like Lyndon Johnson wanted to giveblack men guns? That is beyond absurd.”

For their part, the dissenters seemed simply flabbergasted by the majority decision in every regard. “I don’t know why we took this case,” stated Justice Ginsburg, “I don’t know why we decided it and I’d certainly like to say that I don’t know how it’s possible that anybody could make the argument Justice Scalia offered here today. However, to me it seems like a natural extension of his dissent in Windsor [the voting rights case]. If anyone can makes sense out of that opinion without saying ‘black people are just different,’ he or she is a better jurist than I.”

For his part, Justice Clarence Thomas — the sole African American justice sitting on the bench today — entered a special concurrence indicating that “Justice Scalia and the majority simply did not go far enough” in pointing out how “patently absurd is the notion that white legislators ever meant to give black people guns.” Like Justice Scalia, Thomas embarked on his own historical review in order to make his point clear, and he did so with great force.**

[ ** Editorial note: Language from Thomas’ historical overview has been omitted from the end of this article by decision of the Citizen Schwartz editorial staff due to the Justice’s liberal use of the “N-word” and other racial epithets in making his argument. The language of the decision should soon be posted on the Supreme Court’s website.]

(Sydney, Australia) — The joint Malaysian-Australian commission charged with searching the bottom of the Indian Ocean for remnants of CNN’s once-touted journalistic integrity will soon end its hunt in “abject failure and utter frustration” according to unnamed sources within the agency.

Over the past several months, CNN anchors and pundits have watched on with bated breath as the commission’s underwater sonar device “Bluefin-21” has scoured nearly 95% of the ocean floor.

The search has had its ups-and-downs. “We’ve thought several times that we had leads on this — that someone might have spotted something that looked like real reporting” stated CNN’s Wolf Blitzer speaking from a 3D rendering of an undersea coral reef, “but each time, it’s turned out that agency spotters were simply looking at floating garbage that happened to closely resemble CNN coverage. It’s been very disappointing.”

Indeed, despite high hopes, the network’s 24 hour coverage of the hunt has demonstrated not a single trace of anything resembling journalistic standards or the remnants thereof, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.

Still, some agency insiders remain impressed with CNN’s tenacity. “CNN has really followed us down to rock bottom on this one,” stated Australian official Ryan Nguyen. “There’s no lower the network could go in reporting this story. It’s kind of impressive really.”

It seems the people at Facebook have some explaining to do in the wake of the incredibly successful roll-out of the social networking site’s “Haven’t You Lived Long Enough?” retrospective video compilation service. The service provides users not only with a quick retrospective of their time on Facebook set to an instrumental rendition of Semisonic’s hit song “Closing Time,” but also provides each user with a compelling video presentation demonstrating that they’ve probably lived long enough and shouldn’t bother people with any more posts about their trivial, meaningless existence.

“It was not the intention of Facebook to glorify or promote suicide,” Holly Monroe — head of marketing strategy at Facebook stated in a somber message, “we were simply trying to build on our wonderful 10 Year Anniversary videos by providing our users with a very valuable service at a very difficult time. Clearly we did far too good a job.” Indeed, both police statistics and the Facebook site itself demonstrate an astonishing spike in the suicide rate in every population in which Facebook is popular. Forensic psychologist Adrian Menninger was not surprised by the trend: “Sad as it is to say, suicide is fundamentally a self-involved or narcissistic act. Clearly the exact same thing can be said about posting on Facebook. It’s a natural nexus.”

Josh Peterson, a Facebook user from St. Sebastian, MN offered a different theory: “What do I think? I think people would kill themselves to avoid seeing another goddamn Facebook video. That’s what I think.”